No term is used—and
misused—among the Orthodox people in America more often than the term
canonical. One hears endless discussions about the "canonicity" or the "uncanonicity"
of this or that bishop, jurisdiction, priest, parish. Is it not in itself an
indication that something is wrong or, at least, questionable from the canonical
point of view in America, that there exists a canonical problem which
requires an overall analysis and solution? Unfortunately the-existence of such a
problem is seldom admitted. Everyone simply claims the fulness of canonicity for
his own position and, in the name of it, condemns and denounces as uncanonical
the ecclesiastical status of others. And one is amazed by the low level and
cynicism of these "canonical" fights in which any insinuation, any distortion is
permitted as long as it harms the "enemy." The concern here is not for truth,
but for victories in the form of parishes, bishops, priests "shifting"
jurisdictions and joining the "canonical" one. It does not matter that the same
bishop or priest was condemning yesterday what today he praises as canonical,
that the real motivations behind all these transfers have seldom anything to do
wit h canonical convictions; what matters is victory. We live in the poisoned
atmosphere of anathemas and excommunications, court cases and litigations,
dubious consecrations of dubious bishops, hatred, calumny, lies! But do we think
about the irreparable moral damage all this inflicts to our people? How can they
respect the Hierarchy and its decisions? What meaning can the very concept of
canonicity have for them? Are we not encouraging them to consider all norms, all
regulations, all rules as purely relative? One wonders sometimes whether our
bishops realize the scandal of this situation, whether they ever think about the
cynicism all this provokes and feeds in the hearts of Orthodox people. Three
Russian jurisdictions, two Serbian, two Romanian, two Albanian, two
Bulgarian...A split among the Syrians...The animosity between the Russians and
the Carpatho-Russians...The Ukrainian problem! And all this at a time when
Orthodoxy in America is coming of age, when truly wonderful possibilities exist
for its growth, expansion, creative progress. We teach our children to be
"proud" of Orthodoxy, we constantly congratulate ourselves about all kinds of
historic events and achievements, our church publications distill an almost
unbearable triumphalism and optimism, yet, if we were true to the spirit of our
faith we ought to repent in "sackcloth and ashes," we ought to cry day and night
about the sad, the tragical state of our Church. If "canonicity" is anything but
a pharisaic and legalistic self-righteousness, if it has anything to do with the
spirit of Christ and the tradition of His Body, the Church, we must openly
proclaim that the situation in which we all live is utterly uncanonical
regardless of all the justifications and sanctions that every one finds for his
"position." For nothing can justify the bare fact: Our Church is divided.
To be sure, there have always been divisions and conflicts among Christians. But
for the first time in history division belongs to the very structure of the
Church, for the first time canonicity seems strangely disconnected from
its fundamental "content" and purpose—to assure, express, defend and fulfill the
Church as Divinely given Unity, for the first time, in other terms, one
seems to find normal a multiplicity of "jurisdictions." Truly we must wake up
and be horrified by this situation. We must find in ourselves the courage to
face it and to re-think it in the light of the genuine Orthodox doctrine and
tradition, no matter what it will cost to our petty human likes and dislikes.
For unless we, first, openly admit the existence of the canonical problem and,
second, put all our thoughts and energies into finding its solution, the
decadence of Orthodoxy will begin—in spite of the million-dollar churches and
other magnificent "facilities" of which we are so justly proud. "For the time is
come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us,
what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God"? (I Pet. 4:17).

False Ideas of Canonicity

We
must begin with a clarification of the seemingly simple notion of canonicity.
I say "seemingly simple" because it is indeed simple enough to give a formal
definition: "canonical is that which complies with the canons of the Church." It
is much more difficult, however, to understand what this "compliance" is and how
to achieve it. And nothing illustrates better this difficulty than certain
assumptions on which the whole canonical controversy in America seems to be
grounded and which are in fact a very serious distortion of the Orthodox
canonical tradition.

There are those, for
example, who solve the complex and tragical canonical problem of Orthodoxy in
America by one simple rule, which to them seems a self-evident one: to be
"canonical" one has to be under some Patriarch, or, in general, under
some established autocephalous church in the old world. Canonicity is thus
reduced to subordination which is declared to constitute the fundamental
principle of church organization. Implied here is the idea that a "high
ecclesiastical power" (Patriarch,
Synod, etc.) is in itself and by itself the source of canonicity:
whatever it decides is ipso facto canonical and the criterion of
canonicity. But in the genuine Orthodox tradition the ecclesiastical power is
itself under the canons and its decisions are valid and compulsory only
inasmuch as they comply with the canons. In other terms, it is not the decision
of a Patriarch or His Synod that creates and guarantees "canonicity", but, on
the contrary, it is the canonicity of the decision that gives it its true
authority and power. Truth, and not power, is the criterion, and the canons, not
different in this from the dogmas, express the truth of the Church. And
just as no power, no authority can transform heresy into orthodoxy and to make
white what is black, no power can make canonical a situation which is not
canonical. When told that all Patriarchs have agreed with the Patriarch of
Constantinople that Monotheletism is an Orthodox doctrine, St. Maximus the
Confessor refused to accept this argument as a decisive criterion of truth. The
Church ultimately canonized St. Maximus and condemned the Patriarchs. Likewise,
if tomorrow all Patriarchs agree and proclaim in a solemn "tomos" that the best
solution for Orthodoxy in America is to remain divided into fourteen
jurisdictions, this decision will not make our situation canonical and this, for
the simple reason that it does not comply with the canonical tradition or the
truth of the church. For the purpose and the function of the Hierarchy is
precisely to keep pure and undistorted the tradition in its fullness, and if and
when it sanctions or even tolerates anything contrary to the truth of the
church, it puts itself under the condemnation of canons. [1]
And it is indeed ironical that in America the canonical subordinationism,exalted by so many as the only source and guarantee of "canonicity," is
being used to justify the most uncanonical situation one can imagine; the
simultaneous jurisdiction of several bishops in the same territory, which is a
betrayal of both the letter and the spirit of the whole canonical tradition. For
this situation destroys the fundamental "note" of the Church: the hierarchical
and structural unity as the foundation and the expression of the spiritual
unity, of the Church as "unity of faith and love." If there exists a clear and
universal canonical principle it is certainly that of jurisdictional unity, [2]
and, therefore, if a peculiar "reduction" of canonicity leads to the de facto
destruction of that principle, one can apply to it the words of the Gospel:
"Ye shall know them by their fruits" (St. Matt. 7:16). "Canonical
subordinationism" is the best indication of how deeply "westernized" we have
become in our canonical thinking. Canonicity has been identified not with truth,
but with "security." And nothing short of a real canonical revival can bring us
back to the glorious certitude that in Orthodoxy there is no substitute for
Truth.

Destructive of the Church's
unity, "canonical subordinationism" leads necessarily to the destruction of the
Church's continuity. There is no need to prove here that the continuity
in faith, doctrine and life constitutes the very basis of Orthodox ecclesiology
and that the focal principle of that continuity is the Apostolic succession of
the Episcopate; through it each church manifests and maintains her organic unity
and identity with the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, the
Catholicity of her life and faith. But whereas in the genuine Orthodox
tradition the "subject" of continuity is the Church, i.e. the real
continuity of a living and concrete community with the whole tradition and order
of the Church, continuity of which the succession

of
the Episcopate is the witness and the bearer, here in the theory of "canonical
subordinationism" the reality of the church is reduced to the formal principle
of "jurisdiction," i.e. subordination to a central ecclesiastical power. But
then the meaning of the Apostolic succession is deeply changed as is also that
of the Bishop and his function within the Church. In the original tradition, a
Bishop through his consecration by other bishops, becomes the "successor" not to
his consecrators but, first of all, to the unbroken continuity of his own
Church. [3]

The
"Church is in the Bishop" because the "Bishop is in the Church," in the "organic
unity with a particular body of church people. [4]
In the system of canonical subordination, however, the Bishop becomes a simple
representative of a higher jurisdiction, important not in himself, not as the
charismatic bearer and guardian of his Church's continuity and
catholicity, but as means of this Church's subordination to a
"jurisdiction." It is difficult to imagine a more serious distortion and,
indeed, destruction of the Orthodox conception of continuity and apostolic
succession. For the Church cannot be reduced to "jurisdiction." She is a living
organism and her continuity is precisely that of life. The function of the
Episcopate and of "power" in general is to preserve, defend and express this
continuity and fullness of life, but it is a function within and not
above the Church. The ministry of power does not create the church
but is created by God within the Church, which is ontologically prior to all
functions, charisms and ministries. [5]
And "jurisdiction" when it is divorced from the real continuity of the Church
can become, and in fact often becomes, a principle of discontinuity and schism
...

*A
sad but typical illustration of this is the painful story of the Russian
ecclesiastical conflicts in America. Orthodoxy was implanted in Alaska in the
18th century, by Russian missionaries. Since then the Church here grew
organically: from a mission into a diocese, and then into a group of
dioceses, or a local church. The normal jurisdictional link between the American Church and the Moscow
Patriarchate was broken de facto by the tragical events of the Russian
Revolution. There was no schism, no quarrel, no conflict. The Bishop appointed
from Moscow went to Russia and did not return. Deprived of material support from
the Mother-Church, poisoned by revolutionary propaganda, the Church in America
was in a great spiritual danger. In this tragical situation [6]
the decision of the Sobor of Detroit in 1924 to proclaim the temporary autonomy
was not only fully justified, it was indeed an act of real continuity,
i.e. of the Church's faithfulness to her organic growth. It was moreover an act
of the whole Church: Bishop, [7]
clergy and laity; and its motivation was profoundly and exclusively
ecclesiastical: to assure, under new circumstances, the continuity of life,
faith and order. [8]
But the Moscow Patriarchate condemned the American Church as "schismatic," and in 1933 established here its own "jurisdiction" in
the form of the Exarchate. [9]

We have here a clearcut
clash between the two "canonical logics." On the one hand, there is the logics
of organic continuity in a Church which knows herself to be a reality, a body, a
living continuity and which for the very sake of that continuity and growth,
dares to take steps best suited to that purpose. And there is, on the other

hand,
the legalistic logics in which the whole Church life is nothing but a system of
jurisdictional subordination. The creation of the Patriarchal Exarchate is, from
this point of view, a very interesting phenomenon. It implies that a Church can
be created, so to speak, ex nihilo,by the simple fact of the
arrival to the U.S.A. of Bishop Benjamin. It implies also, that in the Muscovite
thinking the continuity of the Church in America lies not in her long and
organic development, but exclusively in her jurisdictional dependance of
Moscow...And it is really astonishing how many people, even those who claim to
"understand" and "justify" the Metropolia, but mainly for non-ecclesiastical
reasons, fail to realize that by the standards of a genuinely Orthodox canonical
and ecclesiastical tradition, the only real schism was originated by the
declaration of Metropolitan Sergiy of Moscow that Archbishop Benjamin had
"organized in New York a Diocesan Council and that our North American Diocese
has begun official existence." [10]
This act broke the real continuity of the American Church, introduced
division among Orthodox people, weakened the discipline which was restored with
such pain after Detroit, opened the door to endless controversies and
accusations and, in general, contributed to the canonical chaos in which we live
today. And if Apostolic succession has been established for the sake of unity
and sobornost, and must never become the vehicle of exclusiveness and division,
if, in other terms, a schism is an act of division, a break in the real
continuity of the Church, it was the establishment of the Exarchate that
provoked a schism, and a rupture of canonicity.

We mention the Russian
tragedy because, as the time goes on, it becomes more and more obviously a kind
of "pattern" for the whole canonical tragedy of American Orthodoxy. What
happened to the Russians is happening mutatis mutandis to the others, the
Serbians, the Romanians, the Bulgarians, the Syrians, and for the same
fundamental reason: the growing discrepancy between the real situation, the real
continuity, the real needs of Orthodoxy here and the various "situations" in
Bucharest or Damascus, Istanbul or Moscow. If the jurisdictional dependence of
American Churches on these centers in the early, formative period of Orthodoxy
here was a self-evident form of its continuity,it has become
today, paradoxically as it sounds, the cause of discontinuity and division. It
is a significant fact that, with some very few exceptions, the schisms and
conflicts which poison our life here and obstruct all real progress, are rooted
not in the American situation itself, but precisely in this formal "dependence"
on ecclesiastical centers located thousands of miles away from America and
radically alienated from the real needs of the Church in America. A Bishop
virtually without parishes is recognized as "canonical" because he is
"recognized" by his Patriarch, but a Bishop of the same Church with a
flourishing Diocese and with organic roots in the real continuity of the Church
here is declared "un-canonical" for lack of such recognition. An unnecessary and
vicious split in a relatively small Archdiocese is declared "canonical," because
ten Bishops in the Middle East have decided so. A priest in trouble in his own
diocese is always welcome in some other jurisdiction...We are constantly told
that something is "canonical," because it is "recognized" as canonical by such
or such Patriarch or Synod. But, once more, in the Orthodox teaching canonical
is that which complies with the canons and the canons express the truth of the
church. We must openly
reject the "romanizing" (or "Latinizing") theory that something is true because some infallible
authority has decreed that it is true. In the Orthodox Church truth itself is
the supreme authority and criterion. At one time the Patriarch of Constantinople
"recognized" as Orthodox and canonical the so-called "Living Church" in Russia. This did not make it either Orthodox or canonical.

No
Patriarch, no Synod—be it in Moscow or Belgrade or in any other place—has the
infallible charisma to understand the needs and the truth of the American
situation better than the Orthodox people who constitute the Church here. In
fact, it is their lack of genuine pastoral interest in the real needs of the
Church in America, it is their "recognitions" and "excommunications" that made
the Orthodox Church here a pitiful chaos. Obviously, as long as we believe that
the Holy Spirit acts in America only via Damascus or Sofia, Bucharest, or
Moscow, as long as our Bishops, forgetting the real content of the doctrine of
Apostolic succession which makes them the representatives of God and not of
Patriarchs, think of themselves as caretakers of interests having nothing to do
with the interests of Orthodoxy in America, as long, in other terms, as we
reduce the Church, her life, her unity, her continuity to blind and legalistic
subordination, the canonical chaos will continue, bearing with it the fatal
deterioration of Orthodoxy.

Finally, all this leads to
(and also in part proceeds from) the harmful and un-Orthodox reduction of
canonicity to an almost abstract principle of validity. When a man has been
consecrated bishop by at least two other bishops, he is considered as a "valid"
bishop regardless of the ecclesiastical and ecclesiological content of his
consecration. But Orthodox tradition has never isolated validity into a
"principle in itself," i.e. disconnected from truth, authenticity and, in
general, the whole faith and order of the Church. It would not be difficult to
show that the canonical tradition, when dealing with holy orders and sacraments,
always stresses that they are valid because they are acts of, and within,
the Church which means that it is their authenticity as acts of the Church that
make them valid and not vice-versa. To consider validity as a
self-contained principle leads to a magical understanding of the Church and to a
dangerous distortion of ecclesiology. Yet in America, under the impact of the
multi-jurisdictional chaos this idea of validity per se appears more and
more as the only criterion. There grows around us a peculiar indifference to
authenticity, to elementary moral considerations. A Bishop, a priest, a
layman can be accused of all sorts of moral and canonical sins: the day when he
"shifts" to the "canonical" jurisdictions all these accusations become
irrelevant; he is "valid" and one can entrust to him the salvation of human
souls! Have we completely forgotten that all the "notae" of the Church are not
only equally important but also interdependent, and what is not holy—i.e.
right, moral, just, canonical, cannot be "apostolic"?In our
opinion nothing has harmed more the spiritual and moral foundations of Church
life than the really immoral idea that a man, an act, a situation are
"valid" only in function of a purely formal "validity in itself." It is this
immoral doctrine that poisons the Church, makes parishes and individuals think
of any jurisdictional shift as justified as long as they "go under a valid
bishop" and makes

the
Church cynical about and indifferent to, considerations of truth and morals.

The Meaning of Canonicity

The canonical chaos in
America is not a specifically "American" phenomenon. Rather, Orthodoxy here is
the victim of a long, indeed a multi-secular disease. It was a latent disease as
long as the Church was living in the old traditional situation characterized
primarily by an organic unity of the State, the ethnic factor and the
ecclesiastical organization. Up to quite recently, in fact up to the appearance
of the massive Orthodox diaspora, ecclesiastical stability and order were
preserved not so much by the canonical "consciousness," but by State regulations
and control. Ironically enough it made not much difference whether the State was
Orthodox (The Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Greece), Roman Catholic
(Austro-Hungary) or Muslim (the Ottoman Empire). Members of the Church could be
persecuted in non-Orthodox States, but Church organization—and this is the crux
of the matter—was sanctioned by the State and could not be altered
without this sanction. This situation was, of course, the result of the initial
Byzantine "symphony" between Church and State, but after the fall of Byzantium
it was progressively deprived of that mutual interdependence of Church and State
which was at the very heart of the Byzantine theocratic ideology. [11]
What is important for us here and what constitutes the "disease" mentioned above
is that this organic blend of State regulations, ethnical solidarity and Church
organization led little by little to a divorce of the canonical consciousness
from its dogmatical and spiritual context. Canonical tradition,
understood at first as an organic part of the dogmatical tradition, as the
latter's application to the empirical life of the Church, became Canon Law:
a system of rules and regulations, juridical, and not primarily doctrinal and
spiritual in their nature, and interpreted as such within categories alien to
the spiritual essence of the Church. Just as a lawyer is the one who can find
all possible precedents and arguments that favor his "case," a canonist, in this
system of thought, is the one who, in the huge mass of canonical texts, can find
that one which justifies his "case," even if the latter seems to contradict the
spirit of the Church. And once such "text" is found, "canonicity" is
established. There appeared, in other terms, a divorce between the Church as
spiritual, sacramental essence and the Church as organization so
that the latter ceased in fact to be considered as the expression of the first,
fully dependent on it. If today in America so many of our laymen are sincerely
convinced that the parish organization is an exclusively legal or
"material" problem and ought to be handled apart from the "spiritual," the root
of this conviction is not only in the specifically American ethos, but also in
the progressive secularization of canon law itself. And yet the whole point is
that canons are not mere laws, but laws whose authority is rooted precisely in
the spiritual essence of the Church. Canons do not constitute or create the
Church, their function is to defend, clarify and regulate the life of the
Church, to make it comply with the essence of the Church. This means that in
order to be properly understood, interpreted and applied, canonical texts must
be always referred to that truth of, and about, the Church, which they
express sometimes for a very particular situation and which is not necessarily
explicit in the

canonical text itself.

If we
take the canonical area which interests us more particularly in this essay, that
of ecclesiastical organization and episcopal power, it is evident that the basic
reality or truth to which all canons dealing with bishops, their consecration
and their jurisdiction point and refer, is the reality of unity, as the
very essence of the Church. The Church is unity of men with God in Christ
and unity of men one with another in Christ. Of this new, divinely given
and divine unity the Church is the gift, the manifestation, the growth and the
fulfillment. And, therefore, everything in her organization, order and life is
in some way or another related to unity, and is to be understood, evaluated and,
if necessary, judged by it. The dogmatical or spiritual essence of the Church as
unity is thus the criterion for the proper understanding of canons concerning
Church organization and also for their proper application. If the canons
prescribe that a bishop must be consecrated by all bishops of the province (cf.
Apostolic Canon 1, 1 Oecum, Canon 4) and only in case of "some special reason or
owing to the distance" by two or three, the meaning of the canon is obviously
not that any two or three bishops can "make" another bishop, but that the
consecration of a bishop is the very sacrament of the Church as unity and
oneness. [12]
To reduce this canon to a formal principle that there must be at least two
bishops for a "valid" episcopal consecration is simply nonsensical. The canon
both reveals and safeguards an essential truth about the Church and its proper
application is possible, therefore, only within the full context of that truth.
And only this context explains why canons which apparently are anachronistic and
have nothing to do with our time and situations are not considered as obsolete
but remain an integral part of Tradition. To be sure the Melitian schism which
divided Egypt at the beginning of the fourth century has in itself no great
importance for us. Yet the canons of the First Ecumenical Council which defined
the norms for its solution keep all their significance precisely because they
reveal that truth of the Church in the light of which, and for the preservation
of which that schism was solved. All this means that the search for canonicity
consists not in an accumulation of "texts," but in the effort, first, to
understand the ecclesiological meaning of a given text, and then, to relate it
to a particular and concrete situation.

The
necessity for such an effort is especially obvious here in America. The American
ecclesiastical situation is unprecedented in more than one respect. Enough time
and energy have been spent in sterile attempts simply to "reduce" it to some
pattern of the past, i.e. to ignore the real challenge it presents to the
canonical conscience of the Church.

National Pluralism and
Canonical Unity

The unprecedented situation
of American Orthodoxy is that the Church here, different in this from all other
parts of the Orthodox world, is multinational in its origins. Since the
Byzantine era, Orthodoxy was always brought to and accepted by whole nations.
The only familiar pattern of the past, therefore, is not the creation of mere
local churches, but a total integration and incarnation of Orthodoxy in national

cultures; so that these cultures themselves cannot be separated from Orthodoxy
but, in their depth, are genuine expressions of Orthodoxy. This organic unity of
the national and religious is not a historical accident, much less a defect of
Orthodoxy. In its positive expression it is the fruit of the Orthodox concept
and experience of the Church as embracing the whole life. Catholicity means for
an Orthodox more than geographic universality; it is, above everything else, the
wholeness, the totality of life as belonging to Christ and sanctified by the
Church. In this respect, the situation in America is radically different from
the whole historical experience of Orthodoxy. Not only the Orthodox Church was
brought here by representatives of various Orthodox nations, but it was brought
as precisely the continuation of their national existence. Hence the problem of
canonical or ecclesiological unity, which as we have seen is a self-evident
requirement of the very truth of the Church, encounters here difficulties that
cannot be simply reduced to the solutions of the past. And yet, this is
precisely what happens much too often.

On the one hand, there are
those who believe that the old pattern of national and religious unity can be
simply applied to America. The Church is Greek in Greece, Russian in Russia,
therefore it must be American in America—such is their reasoning. We are no
longer Russians or Greeks, let us translate services in English, eliminate all
"nationalism" from the Church and be one... . Logical as it sounds, this
solution is deeply wrong and, in fact, impossible. For what, in their cheerful
but superficial "Americanism," the partisans of this view seem completely to
overlook is that the rapport between Orthodoxy and Russia, or Orthodoxy and
Greece, is fundamentally different from, if not opposed to, the rapport between
Orthodoxy and America. There is not and there cannot be a religion of America in
the sense in which Orthodoxy is the religion of Greece or Russia and this, in
spite of all possible and actual betrayals and apostasies. And for this reason
Orthodoxy cannot be American in the sense in which it certainly is Greek,
Russian or Serbian. Whereas there, in the old world, Orthodoxy is coextensive
with national culture, and to some extent, is the national culture (so that the
only alternative is the escape into a "cosmopolitan," viz. "Western"
culture), in America, religious pluralism and therefore, a basic religious
"neutrality," belongs to the very essence of culture and prevents religion from
a total "integration" in culture. Americans may be more religious people than
Russians or Serbs, religion in America may have privileges, prestige and status
it has not had in the "organic" Orthodox countries, all this does not alter the
fundamentally secular nature of contemporary American culture; and yet it is
precisely this dichotomy of culture and religion that Orthodoxy has never known
or experienced and that is totally alien to Orthodoxy. For the first time in its
whole history, Orthodoxy must live within a secular culture. This presents
enormous spiritual problems with which I hope to deal in a special article. What
is important for us here, however, is that the concept of "Americanization" and
"American" Orthodoxy is thus far from being a simple one. It is a great error to
think that all problems are solved by the use of English in services, essential
as it is. For the real problem (and we will probably only begin to realize and
to face it when "everything" is translated into English) is that of culture, of
the "way of life." It belongs to the very essence of Orthodoxy not only to
"accept" a culture, but to permeate and to
transform it, or, in other terms, to consider it an integral part and object of
the Orthodox vision of life. Deprived of this living interrelation with culture,
of this claim to the whole of life, Orthodoxy, in spite of all formal
rectitude of dogma and liturgy, betrays and loses something absolutely
essential. This explains the instinctive attachment of so many Orthodox, even
American born, to the "national" forms of Orthodoxy, their resistance, however
narrow-minded and "nationalistic," to a complete divorce between Orthodoxy and
its various national expressions. In these forms and expressions Orthodoxy
preserves something of its existential wholeness, of its link with life in its
totality, and is not reduced to a "rite," a clearly delineated number of creedal
statements and a set of "minimal rules." One cannot by a surgical operation
called "Americanization" distill a pure "Orthodoxy in itself," without
disconnecting it from its flesh and blood, making it a lifeless form. There can
be no doubt, therefore, that in view of a this, a living continuity with
national traditions will remain for a long time not only a "compromise" meant to
satisfy the "old-timers," but an essential condition for the very life of the
Orthodox Church. And any attempt to build the unity of Orthodoxy here by
opposing the "American" to the traditional national connotations and
terms will lead neither to a real unity nor to real Orthodoxy.

But equally wrong are those
who from this interdependence of the national and the ecclesiastical within
Orthodoxy draw the conclusion that, therefore, the ecclesiastical, i.e.
"jurisdictional" unity of the Orthodox Church in America is impossible and ought
not even to be sought. This view implies a very narrow and obviously distorted
idea of the Church as a simple function of national identity, values and
self-preservation. "National" becomes here "nationalistic" and the Church—an
instrument of nationalism. One must confess that one gets tired of the frequent
exhortation to "keep the faith of our fathers." By the same reasoning a man of
Protestant descent should remain Protestant and a Jew a Jew, regardless of their
religious convictions. Orthodoxy should be kept and preserved not because it is
the "faith of our fathers," but because it is the true faith and as such
is universal, all-embracing and truly catholic. A convert, for example,
embraces Orthodoxy not because it is somebody's "father's faith," but because he
recognizes in it the Church of Christ, the fullness of faith and catholicity. Yet
it is impossible to manifest and communicate that fullness, if the Church is
simply identified with an ethnic group and its natural exclusiveness. It is not
the task or the purpose of Orthodoxy to perpetuate and "preserve" the Russian or
the Greek national identity, but the function of Greek and Russian "expressions"
of Orthodoxy is to perpetuate the "catholic" values of Orthodoxy which otherwise
would be lost. "National" here has value not in itself, but only inasmuch as it
is "catholic," i.e. capable of conveying and communicating the living truth of
Orthodoxy, of assuring the organic continuity of the Church. Orthodoxy, if it is
to remain the vehicle and the expression of a national "subculture" (and in
America every exclusive ethnical nationalism is, by definition, a subculture),
will share the latter's inescapable disintegration and dissolution. Orthodoxy as
the natural solidarity and affinity of people coming from the same island,
village, geographical area or nation (and we have, in fact, "jurisdictional"
expressions of all these categories) cannot indefinitely resist and survive the
pressure of the
sociological law which condemns such solidarities to a sooner or later death.
What is required, therefore, is not only unity and cooperation among
various national "jurisdictions," but a return to the real idea of unity
as expressing the unity of the Church and the catholicity of her faith
and tradition. Not a "united" Church, but the Church.

The
unprecedented character of the American Orthodox situation results thus in a
double requirement. The Church here must preserve, at least for a foreseeable
period of time, its organic continuity with the national cultures in which she
has expressed the catholicity of her faith and life. And she must, in order to
fulfill this catholicity, achieve its canonical unity as truly One Church. Is this possible?

The Solution: Episcopatus Unus
Est

The
answer to this question is in the doctrinal and canonical tradition, but only if
we look for its depth and truth, and not for petty and legalistic "precedents"
of a situation that has none.

The
canonical solution of which, in these concluding paragraphs, we can give only a
very general and preliminary sketch, presents itself on three levels, which
although they are levels or aspects of the same ecclesiastical structure must
nevertheless be kept distinct.

There can be no doubt that
the unity of the Church, as expressed in her canonical structure, is expressed,
first of all, in and through the unity of the Episcopate. Episcopatus unus
est,wrote St. Cyprian of Carthage in the third century. This means
that each local or particular church is united to all other churches, reveals
her ontological identity with them, in its bishop. Just as every bishop receives
the oneness of the Episcopate expressed in the plurality of the consecrators,
this fulness includes, as its very essence, his unity with the whole Episcopate.
In the preceding pages we have spoken enough of the distortions implied in
canonical subordinationism. It must be strongly emphasized, however, that it is
the distortion of a fundamental truth: the unity and the interdependence of the
bishops as the form of the Church's unity. The error of canonical
subordinationism is that it understands unity only in terms of subordination (of
a bishop to his "superiors") whereas, in Orthodox ecclesiology, subordination or
obedience is derived from the unity of bishops. There is indeed no power
above the episcopal power, but this power itself implies the bishop's
agreement and unity with the whole Episcopate, so that a bishop separated from
the unity of bishops loses ipso facto his "power. " [13]
In this sense a bishop is obedient and even subordinated to the
unity and unanimity of bishops, but because he himself is a vital member
of that unity. His subordination is not to a "superior," but to the very reality
of the Church's unity and unanimity of which the Synod of bishops is the
gracious organ: "The bishops of every nation must acknowledge him who is first
among them and account him as their head, and do nothing of consequence without
his consent...but neither let him...do anything
without the consent of all; for so there will be unanimity"(Apost.
Canon 34).

The
fundamental form and expression of episcopal unity is the Synod of bishops
and it would not be difficult to show that all subsequent forms of
ecclesiastical and canonical structure (provinces, metropolitan districts,
autocephalous churches) grew from this fundamental form and requirements of the
canonical tradition. The various modes of groupings of local churches may have
varied. Thus, the present structure of Orthodoxy as a family of "autocephalous
churches" is by no means the original one. Yet what cannot change is the "Synod
of bishops" as the expression of the Church's unity. It is very
significant, however, that whenever and wherever the spirit of "canonical
subordinationism" triumphs, the idea of the Episcopate's unity and, therefore,
of the Synod of bishops becomes dormant (without, of course, disappearing
completely). When, for example, the Russian Church under Peter the
Great was given the status of a "Department of Orthodox Confession" with, as its
result, a bureaucratic system of administration through subordination, the
Russian Episcopate did not have a plenary Synod for more than two hundred years!
And, in general, since "canonical subordinationism" became more or less the
working system of the Church's government, the bishops themselves felt no need
of Synods and "sobornost." They were satisfied with "Patriarchal" or "Governing"
Synods, which, although retaining something of the original ecclesiological
idea, were in fact, the products of the secular principle of "centralized
administration" rather than of the ecclesiastical norm of episcopal unity. But
it is very important that we understand the difference between a "central
administration," even if it is called "Synod," and the true ecclesiological
nature of an episcopal Synod. A central administration may consist of bishops
(as the Russian Holy Synod, or the Patriarchal Synod of Constantinople), but its
very function and nature is to supply the Church with a "high power" not only
not derived from the unity of bishops, but meant to be a power above
them. Not only is it not the expression of the power of the bishops but, on the
contrary, it is understood as the source of their power. But this is a
deep distortion of the very nature of power in the Church, which is the power of
the bishops united among themselves and united with their respective Churches as
their priests, patrons and teachers. In the Synod of bishops properly
understood, all Churches are truly represented in the person of their
bishops and, in the early tradition, a bishop without a Church, i.e. without the
reality of his episcopacy, is not a member of the Synod. The Synod of bishops is
the "higher power" because it speaks and acts in and for the Church and takes
from the real, living Church the truth of its decisions.

In the canonical tradition
the normal context of the Synod of Bishops is a "province" i.e., a geographical,
territorial group of churches, forming a self-evident "whole." While the
Ecumenical, universal Synod remains an "extraordinary" event, made necessary by
a major crisis, local provincial Synods are to be held at regular intervals (cf.
Apost. Can. 37; First Nicean, Can. 5; Chalcedon, Can. 19; Antioch, Can. 20,
Second Nicean, Can. 6; Carthage, Can. 27; Apost. Can. 37). And again, if the
precise definition of a "province" has greatly changed in Church history and, by
its very nature, depends on a great variety of factors, the idea implied in
these canons, i.e. that of a group of churches forming a local church, united by
territory and
common concerns, is quite clear. It is that part of the Church Universal, which
has all the necessary and sufficient conditions for a truly catholic existence,
in which all churches are in a real interdependence and share in the same
historical "situation."

All
this brings us to the first "dimension" of the American canonical solution: the
unity of the Orthodox Church of America is to be achieved and expressed, first
of all, on the level of the Episcopate. There hardly can be any doubt that
America is a "province" in the canonical sense of this term, that all Orthodox
churches here, regardless of their national origin, share in the same empirical,
spiritual and cultural situation, that the life and the progress of each one of
them depends on the life and the progress of the whole. So much has been already
acknowledged by our bishops when they established their Standing Conference.
But this Conference is a purely consultative body, it has no canonical
status whatsoever, and useful and efficient as it is, it cannot solve any of the
real problems because it reflects the division of Orthodoxy here, as much as its
unity. The bishops must constitute the Synod of the Orthodox Church of
America and this, prior to any other "unification." For this Synod will
reveal and manifest in itself the unity of the Church which up to now exists in
the defective multitude of mutually independent "jurisdictions." And they must
and can do it simply in virtue of their Episcopate which already unites them. It
is, in other words, not something new that is required from them, but the
self-evident manifestation of the truth that Episcopatus Unus Est,
of the very essence of the Episcopate which cannot belong to "churches," but
always belongs to the Church in her indivisibility and oneness. One can almost
visualize the glorious and blessed day when some forty Orthodox Bishops of
America will open their first Synod—in New York, or Chicago, or Pittsburgh—with
the hymn "Today hath the grace of the Holy Spirit assembled us together...." and
will appear to us not as "representatives" of Greek, Russian or any other
"jurisdictions" and interests, but as the very icon, the very "epiphany" of our
unity within the Body of Christ; when each of them and all together will think
and deliberate only in terms of the whole, putting aside for a while all
particular or national problems, real and important as they may be. On that day
we shall "taste and see" the oneness of the Orthodox Church in America even if
nothing else is changed and the various national ecclesiastical structures
remain for a while in operation.

But, in fact, much will be
changed. Orthodoxy in America will acquire a center of unity, of cooperation, a
sense of direction, a "term of reference." We do not have to enumerate here all
problems that face us and which, at present, cannot be solved because no
"jurisdiction" is strong enough to do it by itself. What is even more important,
this center of hierarchical unity will eliminate the numberless frictions among
"jurisdictions" which result in consecrations of new and sometimes very dubious
bishops. If the duty of the Synod, according to canon law, is to approve all
episcopal consecrations ("...and let those who are absent signify their
acquiescence in writing" 1 Ecum., Canon 4), the very existence of a Synod will
bring order into our "jurisdictional" chaos, transform it into a truly canonical
structure.

The Solution: Ecclesia in
Episcopo

The first stage described
above is so self-evident that it requires no lengthy elaboration. The next one
has never been really discussed and yet, if given some thought, appears to be as
obvious. It deals with the second level of unity which is that of the
Diocese. At this point, some statistical data may be quite relevant: in the
State of Ohio, to take but one example, there exist at present 86 Orthodox
parishes. They belong to 14 different jurisdictions, which means that every
group is very small and, of necessity, extremely limited in its educational,
charitable and any other "extra-parish" activities. There is no true Orthodox Bishop
in Ohio (Ed. Note: as of 2005, not in Cleveland, not in Toledo, not in Columbus), no center of unity except the local "clergy fellowships." It is not
difficult to imagine what could be the possibilities of all these parishes if
they belonged to one local ecclesiastical structure. Deprived of it, each parish
lives "in-itself," without any real vision of the whole. And yet there are
scores of colleges in Ohio with an urgent need for Orthodox programs, there are
obvious educational and charitable needs, and there is, above everything else,
the need for a common Orthodox witness in a non-Orthodox world... . But is it
not the very purpose and function of a Diocese to keep the parishes together, to
make them living parts of a greater whole, indeed, the Church? A parish, left to
itself, can never be truly catholic,for it is of necessity
limited by the concerns and interests of its people. And it is maybe one of the
greatest and the deepest tragedies of American Orthodoxy that the parishes have
been, in fact, left to themselves and have become selfish and self-centered
institutions. But how can a Bishop living in New York be a living center
of unity and leadership in Ohio, especially if his power is limited to a group
of scattered parishes? No wonder our people grow in an almost complete ignorance
of a Bishop's function in the Church and think of him as a "guest speaker" at a
parish celebration. But suppose we have a Bishop of Ohio. Suppose a diocesan
center is established which guides and centralizes all common concerns of the
Orthodox Church in Ohio, which—instead of being, as it is today a principle of
division,becomes a principle of unity and common life.
Is it really necessary to even argue in favor of such a solution? Is it not
a self-evident one? To be sure there are difficulties. The Church is
multinational: to what nationality will the Bishop belong? But is it an absolute
difficulty? Can it not be solved if some goodwill, some patience and, above all,
some desire for unity is shown? Is it very difficult to work out a diocesan
constitution which will incorporate and foresee these difficulties? There could
be provisions for a multinational council to assist the Bishop, a system of
rotation of "nationalities," a set of checks and balances. The experience of
Orthodox clergy fellowships which have almost spontaneously mushroomed all
over the country shows that a basis already exists for such a common structure,
both spiritually and materially, and that it needs only to be crowned with its
logical, canonical consequence.

The Solution: The Parish

Finally, the third level:
the parish. It is here that the national cultural unity, which, whether we
like it or not, still constitutes a vital necessity for American Orthodoxy,
fulfills its ecclesiastical function. It is probable that for quite a while the
parishes will
remain predominantly, if not exclusively, colored by their national background.
This, of course, does not exclude the establishment of "pan-Orthodox" parishes
wherever a national group is too weak to maintain its own (in new suburbias, for
example). But, as a general rule, a parish cannot live by an "abstract"
Orthodoxy. In reality it is always shaped by this or that liturgical tradition
and piety, belongs to a definite "expression" of Orthodoxy. And it is good that
it be so. At this stage of the history of Orthodoxy in America it would be e
spiritually dangerous—and we have explained why-to break this organic continuity
of piety and culture, of memory and custom. There are some among us who dream of
"uniformity" in everything, thinking that uniformity and unity are identical.
But this is wrong, and it reflects a very formal and not a spiritual
understanding of unity. It may be the source of many blessings for the growing
Orthodox Church in America that it will profit by the best in each national
culture, will "appropriate" the whole heritage of the Orthodox Church. For
through its unity with parishes of all the other national backgrounds within the
Diocesan framework, each national parish will share its "riches" with the others
and, in turn, receive from the others their gifts—and this is indeed the real
catholicity! The national culture of one group will cease to be a principle of
separation, of exclusiveness, of self-centeredness and, will cease, thus, to
deteriorate into a psychological and spiritual "isolationism." And maybe it is
in America that God wants us to heal the multi-secular national isolation of
Orthodox Churches, one from another, and this not by abandoning all that made
the spiritual beauty and meaning of Greek, Russian, Serbian and all other
"Orthodoxies," but by giving each of them finally their catholic and universal
significance. It is here that we can all share and consider as truly ours
the spiritual legacies of the Greek Fathers, the paschal joy of St. Seraphim of
Sarov, the warm piety hidden for centuries in the Carpathian mountains... . Then
and only then Orthodoxy will be ready for a real encounter with America, for its
mission to America... .

In
the last analysis the requirements of our Orthodox canonical tradition, the
solution of our canonical problem coincides, strange as it may seem, with the
most practical solution, with common sense. But it is not strange. For Tradition
is not a dead conformity with the past. Tradition is life and truth and the
source of life. "Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you
free."—free to follow the glorious Truth and to fulfill in this great country
the mission of Orthodoxy.

Endnotes

1.
"The duty of obedience ceases when the bishop deviates from the Catholic norm,
and the people have the right to accuse and even to depose him," G. FIorovsky, "Sobornost—The
Catholicity of the Church," The Church of God, London, 1934, p. 72.

2. Cf. John Meyendorff, "One
Bishop in One City" (Canon 3, First Ecum. Council) in

St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly,
1961, vol. 5, 1-2, pp. 54-62.

3. In
all early documents the lists of bishops show their succession on the same
"cathedra" and not through their consecrators; cf. for example, Eusebius,
Eccl. Hist.,V, VI, 1-2; St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer.,111, 3, 3.
On the meaning of episcopal consecration by several bishops, cf. my essay, "The
Idea of Primacy in Orthodox Ecclesiology" in The Primacy of Peter,London,
1963, pp. 40 ff., and also G. Florovsky, "The Sacrament of Pentecost" (A Russian
view on Apostolic Succession) in Sobornost,March 1934, pp. 29-35: "Under
normal conditions of Church life, Apostolic succession should never become
reduced to an abstract enumeration of successive ordainers. In ancient times
Apostolic succession usually implied first of all a succession to a definite
cathedra, again in a particular local sobornost. Apostolic Succession
does not represent a self-sufficient chain, or order of bishops."

4. G.
Florovsky, op. cit., p. 32.

5.
"On the day of Pentecost the Spirit descends not only on the Apostles, but also
on those who were present with them; not only on the Twelve, but on the entire
multitude (compare St. John Chrysostom's Discourses and his
Interpretation of Acts).This means that the Spirit descends on the whole of
the Primitive Church, then present in Jerusalem. But though the Spirit
is one, the gifts and ministrations of the Church are very varied, so that while
in the sacrament of Pentecost the Spirit descends on all, it is on the Twelve
alone that He bestows the power and the rank of priesthood promised to them by
our Lord in the days of His flesh. The distinctive features of priesthood do not
become blurred in the all-embracing fulness of Pentecost. But the simultaneity
of this Catholic outpouring of the Spirit on the entire Church witnesses to the
fact that priesthood was founded within the sobornost of the church." G.
Florovsky, op. cit., p. 31.

6.
For a description of that situation cf. D. Grigorieff, "The Historical
Background of Orthodoxy in America" in St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly,
vol. 5, 1961, 1-2, p. 3ff.

12. "In the ordination of a
bishop no separate bishop can act for himself as a bishop of a definite and
particular local Church.... He acts as a representative of the

sobornost of co-bishops, as a member, and shares of this sobornost... In
addition to this it is implied that these bishops are not separated and indeed
are inseparable from their flocks. Every co-ordainer acts in the name of
Catholic sobornost and fulness... Again, these are not only canonical, or
administrative, or disciplinary measures. One feels that there is a mystical
depth in them. No realization or extension of Apostolic Succession is otherwise
possible apart from the unbreakable sobornost of the whole Church." G. Florovsky,
op. cit., p. 31.

This article was
originally published in St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 2
(1964), pp. 67-84, and is widely disseminated on the internet.

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VISITORS ABOUT OUR E-MAIL POLICY

At:

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We are
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as befits those who seek those things pertinent to the Orthodox Catholic
Christian Faith and life.

There are unscrupulous people on the internet these days.
Some of them are not who they claim to be and in order to disrupt honest
spiritual pursuits, they are known to send out e-mail under someone else's name
or the name of another church or jurisdiction with attachments. Anyone can
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If you should ever receive an e-mail with an attachment
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Unless we know
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what attempts and extremes they go to make their e-mails "look" official when it
is a lone person or persons who hate TRUTH and love lies, hate anything from
being posted that involves TRUTH because they may be affected with exposure to
the LIVING TRUTH of Jesus Christ's Love. They HATE some of the news,
quotes, and such as to inform the general public. Some of them pose as
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ORTHODOX CHURCH jurisdiction(s)
of the same name of which we are their former MOTHER CHURCH (Toledo, Ohio);
having joined in and with "Independent"
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own brand of standardization which is evidence of their being not truly
"Orthodox" "Christian" or even "Catholic" no matter what their nomenclatured
corporate name may be.

They are just as
bad, as the modern day Ecumenists of the World Council of Churches, the World
Council of Bishops and more.

Remember, anything that is a HALF TRUTH is not truth but a
lie! Many there are that you may know who fit those descriptions... pray
for them. Pray that God will send his Spirit of Truth upon them and lead
them to Salvation through tears of Repentance, conversion of their cold and
calculating hearts toward seeking forgiveness from God and those whom they
attempt to harm.

Those who receive e-mail from us, know who we are and from
where we send mail.

If you are of another jurisdiction, you too could find
that your parishioners, clergy and faithful might become subject to the same as
we have recently found.

Let this be a warning to visitors so as to be safeguarded
against unscrupulous e-mails which contain viruses, worms and unsavory material
from person(s) organizations or institutions that are more self-serving than
uplifting and informatively news worthy.

For ourselves, we have, as in the past, so once again,
acquired the assistance of those who are able and capable of tracing e-mails
back to their source and taking appropriate action in North America.

We have learned that the organization we
subscribe to, whose members come from various legal and law enforcement
backgrounds amongst other areas of society, are committed to the faith even
though they may hold different theologies. Yet, in their monitoring of
electronic communications of various persons or people, they do not always make
haste to bring perpetrators to justice until after enough evidence has been
gained in order to build a solid case. We do not always know what
information they have gained, but we do know the organization, whom we've been
asked not to name, has had a 97% success rate in bringing to justice and
obtaining a conviction against individuals, people, and sometimes even religious
organizations of a persona that gives the appearance of both secular and
religious bearing but who abuse and misuse technology. The organization views
those who abuse and misuse the internet and other technologies as nothing more
than a form of "domestic terrorism" - - - - and, it would seem to appear that
the courts are in agreement!

Those
kinds of people, organizations, etc. who misuse and abuse communication
technologies are no different than those who
attempt to use coercive measures, and in some instance,
even blackmail for the same idea is
involved... to cause havoc and wreckage, to destroy the spirit and activity of
those who struggle in the faith out of pain of heart for the Orthodox Church
which is TRUTH. The degree that some have been known to go to, as seen by other
jurisdictions, is to take advantage of questionably mentally challenged or those
who have a lack of education and understanding to get them to make statements,
even outright lies, in writing, in order to destroy.

Yes, our Metropolitan Archbishop, +Joseph Thaddeus, SSJt., Ph.D. strongly defends the Seals of the Confessional for such leads to
true Repentance in thought, word and deed whereby the penitent is required to
make amends, where possible, to seek forgiveness of those harmed by his actions
whether real or imagined, and to give his forgiveness to those who have harmed
him before taking the Holy Body and Blood in the Eucharist. The reality of
this understanding is bound in and with the findings for which cause he,
himself, had been character assassinated by his detractors who claim the courts
prevented him from breaking the Seals of the Confessional which is not the truth
at all....
Click here to see what another bishop's findings are...

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